BAYAMUS and CARDINAL PôLéTöO
by Stefan Themerson
Bayamus and Cardinal PîlÑtÅo ($15.95 paperback original; Apr. 1, 1997; 240 pp.; 1-878972-21-9): Two cryptic and amusing novellas from a late (191088) Polish master of the avant-garde. ``Bayamus'' is a language-drunk romp that wryly explores the transformative effect on reality produced by the practice of ``semantic poetry'' (``ways of making familiar words look as if they were not familiar'') and features such arresting characters as silent-filmmaker Karl Mayer; a Chinese giant; and a ``Homo Triped,'' who is born a boy and becomes a girl. ``The Life of Cardinal PîlÑtÅo'' deliciously revises Plato in a lively fantasy about a truculent cleric determined to rid the world of poets, and hence of heresy. Both stories are dense, demanding, hilarious, and richly enjoyable.